Joe Romm’s Post

Jevons Paradox confusion, Part 1: A.I. isn't coal—and even the Microsoft CEO is confused! Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is a smart man who made both himself and shareholders a lot wealthier by placing a very big bet on A.I. But like most people, he is very confused about the Jevons Paradox, which has started to trend in the news thanks to China's DeepSeek. So Nadella posted on X, "Jevons paradox strikes again! As AI gets more efficient and accessible, we will see its use skyrocket, turning it into a commodity we just can't get enough of." I hope everyone can see that THERE'S NO PARADOX IN A USEFUL PRODUCT THAT "GETS MORE EFFICIENT AND ACCESSIBLE" SEEING MUCH WIDER USE. Indeed, that's the opposite of a paradox, which is "a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true." What Nadella described is common sense. It's precisely what you would expect. Indeed, it would be hard to come up with many counterexamples of useful products getting more efficient and accessible—and being used LESS. So clearly that's NOT Jevon's Paradox. What Jevons said—or at least what others have interpreted him to have said—is a VERY complicated subject. But it's one I have written about at length since 1999 when I argued—correctly—in a white paper and then in a 2002 journal article that those predicting the Internet and IT would drive energy use up sharply were wrong. So I will try to clear up the confusion in a series of posts because it matters whether or not DeepSeek—which may be 95% more energy efficient than Microsoft's AI—will still increase energy use sharply, as many argue by (mis)citing Jevons. Barron's has a pretty good description of what Jevons said: https://lnkd.in/eGJPPRQn? >>Named for William Stanley Jevons, a 19th-century English economist, the Jevons Paradox posits that lowering the cost of using fuel doesn’t reduce demand for it, but instead causes it to rise. “It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth,” he wrote in his 1865 book, The Coal Question.<< Various 19th century inventions that allowed coal to be used more efficiently led to a vast increase in coal use. Again, not very surprising since energy is incredibly useful—and if you can make it more efficiently and cheaply, you're going to find a lot more uses for it. The same thing happened with solar panels and wind turbines: They got steadily more efficient and cheaper at turning sunlight and wind into useful enegy and their use has soared. Except nobody calls that a paradox. Go figure! In Part 2, I'll look at why I think DeepSeek may well be a big energy SAVER—contrary to those who think Jevons would have disagreed. And if you'd like to drown yourself in the issue in the meantime, check out "Jevons Paradox: The Debate That Just Won’t Die," from RMI, my old stomping grounds. https://lnkd.in/e5T883Zr